Leaving it to serendipity

Today was our last day in Japan.  We both felt that we had done and seen so much that it wasn’t necessary to go exploring.  We would go for wanders before and after lunch and dinner, and let serendipity take its course.

We lazed in our rooms after our 0830 udon and rice triangle breakfast, until 1100 when we headed out in search of lunch.

Last night, we had seen queues for tsukemen, a deconstructed ramen dish where the noodle was served separately from a thick gravy soup which was used as a dipping sauce.

We had planned to reach there early to minimise queueing but a wrong turn saw us meant that we got there to find a queue already.  The 40 min wait was well worth it as the gravy soup was just awesome, especially for me who had ordered it spicy.

After more shopping for Alice, we joined the queue for “I am donut ?” a popular doughnut shop.  The queue was fast-moving  and once inside, we thought staff needed masks to protect themselves from breathing in the oily fumes.

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They had a selection imaginative glazes and fillings.  Alice had intended to just buy two pieces but ended up with way more than that.  We had some in the hotel breakfast room for afternoon tea.

Around 1600, we headed out to towards the port area. While it looked pretty industrial on Google Maps, I thought there may be nice pockets.  We walked through some nice shopping areas of Fukuoka before we gave up and window-shopped till darkness fell.

We then came across a lovely Christmas market in the park outside the Acros building.  It seemed wrong that I had gone to my first ever Christmas market in Fukuoka. And slept my first night at a capsule hotel at Kuala Lumpur International Airport some years ago.

We finished our Japan stay with dinner at a tempura bar.